Fear the Nightmare: Redux
by AbsoluteZero77
Summary: Soul Edge, a sword bathed in the blood of thousands. Locked away within host after host, with varying degrees of success. It may never awaken in one, and be realized too soon. Issei Hyoudou is forced into this life quickly, and as his mental state crumbles his only light is from the friend he wants to protect. He'll either defy the cursed blade, or fall like the others.


**AN- Hello everybody! Welcome to the story. Now if you were a fan of Fear the Nightmare, you'd know that I decided to give it a rewrite. So, here it is, the new version of the story. While the main story is the same, I hope this is more well written and with better romance. So, I hope you like it and as always...Enjoy the Show!**

When my best friend Irina went away to England, it hit me really hard. The first couple days were the worst, I hardly spoke, ate, or did much of anything really. It was after that period that my parents took me to the park, hoping that would cheer me up. Needless to say it did little for me at the time, or at least until I met her. Hiding behind one of the pillars was a girl. She'd been watching me read for the past ten minutes, and each time I looked over at her she'd quickly hide her face. Sighing I got up and walked over to her, mainly because I felt that I'd be too distracted if she kept staring at me. That was when I saw her completely. She had light pink eyes, a pair of red glasses, and a short bob cut. She seemed to be clutching the book in her hands rather tightly. Upon further inspection it was the same book I was reading. She seemed shy, looking down at the ground, darting between me, the book, and the ground.

"Hello, I'm Issei, what's your name?" I'd asked her, she looked up at me when I spoke, and after a couple seconds,

"Sona...I'm Sona." I smiled a bit at her.

"Nice to meet you Sona, you like reading too?" I asked, gesturing to the book. At this she nodded excitedly.

"Yeah, I love reading." She said, this time a bit more confidently.

"I was watching you cause I saw you had the same book and I thought we could be friends. No one else I know likes to read all that much." She explained. I smiled a bit more before nodding.

"I'd like if we could be friends." I told her, Sona's eyes lit up when I said that as we sat down and began talking about books. A while later a pair of adults walked over to where we were, I assumed they were Sona's parents.

"Sona, it's time to go home." Her mother said, causing her to pout.

"I don't wanna, I want to talk to my friend more." She said indignantly, crossing her arms. Her parents laughed a bit when she said this.

"I'm sure your friend needs to go home too Sona-chan. Now come on, you wouldn't want us to have to call your big sister would you?" She asked, making Sona pale greatly.

"It's ok Sona, we can play tomorrow, right?" I asked. She nodded and stood up.

"Ok...I'll see you tomorrow, right Issei?" She asked. Nodding I stood up as well.

"Yeah, we'll play tomorrow." I said. She smiled before walking over to her parents,

"Bye Issei!" She said as she walked off.

And that was how our relationship started, we'd come to the park daily, talk about books, play together, we even had a couple sleepovers from time to time, and it was at one of those that I found out what she was.

Normally what happened at one of our sleepovers, we'd play games, read, and then sleep. The thing is, while I let Sona have the bed each time, I'd usually end up in the bed with her using me as a pillow. I'd just woken up to find myself in the same situation as I normally would. Except this time, Sona wasn't awake yet. She was always awake before I was up, so this gave me the perfect opportunity to see her sleeping, needless to say I was both startled and in awe. She had wings, bat's wings sprouting from her back. My initial reaction was to suddenly move away, thus startling her awake. She stared at me bleary eyed until she realized what I'd seen.

"I...Issei...I can explain!" She said quickly, her wings folding away.

"Wh...what are you?" I'd asked her, I wasn't scared, just curious. She'd looked away nervously. After a time she answered,

"A devil." She said, thinking back to scriptures and other books I'd read,

"So like a demon?" She began shaking her head quickly.

"N...No, devils aren't like demons." She stopped suddenly,

"If I tell you this...will you promise not to tell anyone else?"

"Of course, you're my best friend, I'd never do something like that." She smiled at my words as she began to explain herself. As she talked, I found that a lot of what she said actually made sense to me. After she finished she looked at me again.

"You promise not to tell anyone right?" She asked once more.

"I'd never tell anyone Sona, like I said, you're my best friend." I said to her kindly. She smiled a bit as she got up and dressed. Her parents soon came by to pick her up as usual. Turning around, she waved goodbye to me and was gone. That left me with an entire day to myself. Shrugging, I told my parents that I was going out for a walk, and they told me not to go too far.

 **A few hours later**

I was on my way home now, and by this point it looked like it was beginning to rain. Sighing a bit I began to hurry up, not wanting to get wet. As I passed through the park, I began to feel something was off. A few seconds after that a white, mirror like dome surrounded the park. I ran to the edge of the park and tapped the dome carefully, it was solid as a rock, I could tell that much. The sound of footsteps began to echo in the dead silence, growing closer with each second. Turning around I saw a man there, dressed in an overcoat with a suit underneath it.

"So, this is supposed to be the incarnation of Nightmare? Doesn't look like much." He said, as if talking to someone, but there was no one around besides us.

"Well...it doesn't matter much, but you do have to die." Opening his hand something that looked like a spear formed in his hand. I didn't know what to do, I simply backed up as much as I could until I was pressing my back to the dome. I couldn't believe it, this was how I would die? Trapped in some dome with a man and a spear? No, maybe it was a dream and I'd wake up at home. But this seemed too real to be that. The man took another step and readied his arm, closing my eyes I looked away until I heard a voice.

'Do you wish to live?' It asked.

"Yeah, I don't wanna die." I said in response. I never figured it out until years later that through this exchange, time had stood still.

'Then repeat after me, child.' He spoke a single phrase to me, and even to this day as I live, I regret my words deeply.

"Blood, darkness, come unto me!" I shouted, just as I'd been directed. A burning feeling began to erupt within me as I fell to my knee. The man with the spear took a step back, a look of horror plastered across his face.

 **Third Person P.O.V**

The feeling of magic soon coated the area, a dark, twisted aura that seemed to come from Issei. Uneasily he stood, hunched over in pain. The man was frozen in shock, there was no way he could've called upon Nightmare so quickly, and yet there it was. Issei's eyes soon took a dark red glow as a longsword formed in his hand, a sword red from tip to hilt, almost seemingly made of crystal. In the pommel was an eye, bloodshot and darting around. Issei took a step now, shakily at first but it became more fluid with each step. The aura around him was oppressive, the air seemed to burn around him. The man, realizing he couldn't win, quickly dispelled the barrier around the park, a two pairs of jet black wings sprouted from his back as he began to fly off, or would have if Issei hadn't grabbed a hold of his leg and pulled him to the ground.

"Where do you think you're going?" He asked, his voice distorted and hollow. Issei swung his sword down in an arc, narrowly missing the man in the leg.

"L...Look, can't we talk about this? Let me explain?" He begged, Issei made no response, but he slowly lowered his sword. Taking a sigh the man smiled.

"Good, I knew you could be reasoned wi-" He was quickly cut off as the sword was plunged through his heart.

"You tried to kill me, be thankful that I made this quick." Issei said as the man, without another word, died. Pulling the blade out Issei put his hand above the man,

"Your soul is **mine**." He said as a faint red light went from the dead man and into Issei's hand. From there Issei waved his hand over the eye and the light disappeared. Silently, the sword disappeared and Issei fell to his knees, dead tired, and collapsed right there, next to the body of the fallen angel he'd killed.

 **Issei's POV**

I couldn't remember anything after I said that phrase, all I remembered was shouting that, and waking up in a hospital bed. Groaning a bit I sat up, my head was pounding as I looked around. My parents were there, asleep on a couple chairs to the side of the bed. And resting her head on the bed was Sona. Rubbing my head I looked around for some indication of time. Seeing a clock it looked like a few days had passed by. I didn't really want to wake my parents up, and even less so for Sona, mainly because she was...grumpy for lack of a better word when she woke up from a nap. Lying back down I began to drift off to sleep once more, though the dreams that came with it were not comforting. I saw a massive figure standing over me, wearing armor that scared me to the core.

 **(I don't know how to describe this armor so just google Nightmare Soul Calibur Inferno. Should be the first image)**

"Who are you?" I asked, unafraid, it was only a dream, that...thing couldn't hurt me.

"I am Inferno, the spirit of Soul Edge. You seem to be my new host." It said, it's voice deep and rumbling.

"What do you want?"

"Besides world domination? Nothing much. But seeing as I'm...without my normal means of possessing you, we must compromise." Inferno said casually now, as if he hadn't just basically said he would possess me if he could.

"What makes you think I want to? I don't have anything really to gain from this."

"That girl at the bedside, I can feel it, you love her, even though you're only children I can feel that your heart burns for her. Did she ever tell you about how long she'll live?" It asked now, confusing me slightly.

"No...how long do devils live?" I asked, slightly afraid of the answer.

"They can live for centuries, sometimes for thousands of years. A single human lifetime is but the blink of an eye for her. Even if she feels the same she'll forget you after a while. Is that what you want? The knowledge that she'll get along just perfectly fine after you've died?" It asked, edging forward a bit.

"N...no. I want to be there for her, as long as I can." I said, a bit angry. I didn't want that to happen, I didn't want her to forget me so easily.

"Then we compromise, I give you the power to kill anyone who would try to hurt her, or for any other reason really, and you take the souls of those you kill. Your lifespan will increase dramatically, and you won't need to worry about this anymore. Deal?" I thought for a bit, and his offer did sound tempting. I just couldn't say no.

"Alright, I accept." I said, slightly defeated.

"Perfect, now the bonding process for this will hurt for a bit, but it'll pass, I hope you enjoy the results." It said as a similar pain began to spread through my body. Opening my mouth I tried to scream, but couldn't. When I woke up again it was night time, my parents were gone, yet Sona was still there, only this time a small blanket was draped over her. I looked around for any indication of the so called "bonding" that Inferno talked about, and found a tattoo on my hand. It seemed less of that though, and more of a branding. The silhouette of a sword was burned onto my right palm, yet it didn't sting. Shaking my head, I wondered how I ever got into this situation for the first time, a question that still echoes in my mind so long after that. But for now I was content with the way things were, at least for the time. And maybe being bonded to Inferno wouldn't be bad, or at least I hoped. I just want to live and stand by Sona, I don't care about anything else other than being with my friend.

 **End Note- Welp, this was a long time coming yet I'm not entirely satisfied with it. I hope it's good, and I hope you guys enjoy this. We should be back to canon in the next chapter. And I'm sorry if this feels a little incomplete, I just couldn't think of a way to end this in a good way. But I have laid the groundwork for the next chapter with everything that happened. Also this will probably be a single pairing, but I can add one extra girl if you want, but that's it. And that wraps it up, leave a review and tell me what could've been better, but please be constructive about it. I don't really need flames that don't help at all, I want to be able to come up with interesting chapters that flow well. That's all for now and remember**

 **Read Review Doveturtle**


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